Headache
by avtorSola
Summary: It's only two words, yet that one phrase brings his entire world crashing down in a second. Character death.


**A/N:** Okay. I was hit with a plot bunny. I actually don't know what's going on here. Just a disclaimer.

* * *

His head hurt.

He massaged the back of his head wearily, the throbbing ache leaving a sour taste in his mouth, and with a stifled groan he spiraled from his chair, wobbling unsteadily to the soft couch in his office. He spilled onto it in a disjointed mess, his legs tingling uncomfortably, his stomach swirling with churning nausea. Matsumoto was at his side in a matter of moments, helping him to lay back against the soft cushions.

"Taicho?" she whispered worriedly. He winced at the sound of her voice, the stabbing pulse at the back of his skull dimming only slightly with the change in position. Another migraine? He wondered through the aching waves of discomfort.

"M'fine." He slurred weakly, trying to focus on her face. "Jus' a headache…"

His lieutenant's brow furrowing, worry lines pulling her face into a mockery of its usual carefree smile.

"This is the second time this week, Captain." She reminded him softly. "And the ninth time this month. Are you sure you don't want to see Unohana-taicho or Kurosaki-taicho?"

Toushiro turned onto his side, trying to will his stomach to settle and his headache to vanish.

"M'fine." He insisted again, his words still muffled and running together. "C'n you get a…painkill'r…?"

Rangiku's face softened, and she drew a blanket over her captain's shoulders, pressing a kiss to his forehead. He frowned up at her; wincing again as his poor beleaguered brain let loose another round of fresh, throbbing pain. Matsumoto felt sorry for him then, felt sorry for the young, snow-topped man who was curled on the couch before her, incapacitated by his own noggin.

"Of course, Captain." She said gently. "But promise me that you'll see Unohana or Ichigo about this soon, okay? Maybe they can tell you what's causing the headaches."

Hitsugaya nodded wearily, pressing a hand to the back of his head where the pain was worst, and agreed quietly, his tone clearer now. Unfortunately for him, the memory of his promise would soon evaporate, and he didn't go to either of the healing-captains until the symptoms were too severe for him – or anyone else – to ignore. But by then, it was too late.

* * *

The headaches became more vicious as time passed, and while they also grew fewer in number, a slew of other problems had begun to rear their ugly heads, namely, the general state of confusion which now plagued him in every waking moment. Often he had lapses in his memory where minor events had happened, and more than once now had he experienced the disconcerting mishap of forgetting the topic of a conversation he was having at that very moment.

He'd also noticed that his hands and feet would sometimes fall asleep at inopportune moments. So far, he hadn't had the unpleasant tingling creep up on him while he was practicing his kata, but he knew that it was only a matter of time. The new issues irked him, but he _had_ been spending a lot of time doing paperwork recently. And so he shrugged it off. It was probably just overwork anyways.

So when he finally realized that something was seriously wrong, it was too late for him to control it. Later, he found out exactly what had happened from his distraught lieutenant.

He'd had a seizure. A grand mal seizure, complete with full body convulsions and ensuing loss of consciousness.

It started slowly, a sort of uncontrollable twitch in his fingers. He'd been in the middle of a pleasant conversation with Kurosaki, who had become the Captain of the Ninth Division shortly after his death thirty-five years ago. He'd been an incredibly well-known doctor in his human life – luckily for Hitsugaya.

They'd been standing at the edge of the Tenth's training grounds, which were unusually busy for such a chilly fall day, just talking about their respective divisions and bemoaning the amount of paperwork each had to do. Hitsugaya hadn't noticed the twitching at first, but when his entire arm had begun to spasm, tensing and relaxing oddly without his conscious decision to move, he had broken off in the middle of speaking.

Ichigo had stared at him for a moment, then followed his friend's gaze to the twitching limb. The former doctor – who often helped Unohana nowadays – had gone somewhat pale.

"Hey, Toushiro…" he'd said cautiously, and Hitsugaya had turned to him with bafflement shining from his face, and then the world had blurred and gone utterly dark.

He'd woken in the Fourth Division, carefully wrapped in soft white blankets, his tongue thick and fuzzy in his mouth, his head pounding. An IV was in his arm, wrapped in white bandages, and when Hitsugaya lifted tingling fingertips to his head he could feel that another bandage had been taped over a shaved patch on the back of his skull.

Matsumoto had spilled the beans about his headaches and lapses in memory while he'd been unconscious, and that had led to several anxious tests…All of which indicated something awful.

Ichigo, ashen-faced with tears in his brown eyes, had been at his side and he had been the one who had broken the news.

"I'm so, so sorry, Toushiro…" Ichigo had whispered afterwards, but Hitsugaya had gone numb, his mind frozen in disbelief. Two little words had destroyed his entire life.

 _Brain cancer._

* * *

He was released from active duty the next day. Yamamoto himself came to offer his support, and gave the young captain full permission to do whatever he wished with the time remaining to him. Hitsugaya hadn't known how to respond. He had barely spoken at all since Ichigo had informed him of his condition. Even when Unohana had come in to tell him – _gently, with sorrow in her heart and tears on her eyelashes_ – that he had a year left at the most without treatment, he'd said nothing, only stared off into space with a horribly empty expression.

Finally, Matsumoto asked for permission to take him home, and he was led from the Fourth like a child, holding tight to his lieutenant for strength of both heart and soul. His subordinates greeted them with anxious cries, asking about his health so often that he almost broke down from the effort it was taking him to ignore his prognosis. Rangiku waved them off with a shush, her voice rising protectively over him, and in that moment he spoke again, his words trembling, his face white with shock.

"Matsumoto…I…" he murmured, jade paling into watery green as the full, terrible force of the illness blindsided him. He knew his subordinates were looking at him, knew they were staring, knew they were scared by his terror, yet even so he felt the anguish and fear and anger creep through his blood like the poison of the tumor in his head.

"I don't want to die." He choked out, his voice a whispering plea. "I…I d-don't…not like that."

Strawberry blonde hair bounced as she scooped his small body into her arms, the grief on her face raw but filled with fierce belief. His subordinates gaped in openmouthed horror – not only had Hitsugaya's words been ominous, he was not struggling against the way he was being held.

"You won't." Rangiku said softly. "You'll fight it, I know you will. You'll beat this."

He swallowed hard, his eyes wide, the cords along the edge of his neck pulsing in time to his heartbeat. Then he closed his eyes on the tears, stopping them short before they could spill over.

"My head hurts."

* * *

Chemotherapy was brutal on him.

Matsumoto, Ukitake, Hinamori and Kurosaki were caring for him full-time now, trying not to pull any of his fine white hair from his scalp when they had to hold his head over the toilet while he vomited up anything which he'd recently eaten. Yet the hair came off anyway, falling in small clumps to the floor, like melting snowflakes, and the nausea never truly went away. He tried to lead a mostly normal life, even wheedling Unohana into allowing him some exercise time with Hyourinmaru.

But the truth was that he was sick, he knew he was sick, and there was very little he could do about it.

Eventually, Kurosaki and Ukitake quietly took over most of his paperwork, and Hinamori was more often seen at his side than her captain's. Matsumoto, of course, had immediately ditched her work in favor of helping him. Every second of every day, someone was with him, waiting for him to collapse, to keel over in a broken mess.

He hated it.

Sitting quietly on the edge of Sokyoku Hill, he raised a hand to touch the unusual smoothness of his scalp. Tears pricked at the corners of his eyes – he'd finally decided to shave his head, and that simple act felt like defeat. Sighing deeply, he drew his knees up to his chest, the pale green of his yukata gathered around his thinning frame like a baggy impression of the person he'd once been.

The sun hung low over the horizon, drenching Seireitei's gleaming buildings in rich orange light, and he smiled brokenly at the beautiful sight. With frail fingers he reached out, as if trying to grasp the scarlet ball of fiery life that slipped further over the horizon the long that he watched.

"It's beautiful, isn't it?"

The soft question was Ukitake's, and with a sifting lisp, the older captain's white haori swirled out, billowing as he sat beside Toushiro. Hitsugaya swallowed hard.

"Yeah." He replied, his voice thick. Ukitake looked at him, then put an arm about his shoulders and gently drew the sick child close, saying nothing at all. Hitsugaya leaned wordlessly into the strong touch, his slender frame trembling. He closed his eyes.

"It's not working." He whispered, revealing the awful truth that only Unohana and Kurosaki knew. "I'm dying."

The older captain said nothing, but when his grip on his younger colleague tightened in defiance, Hitsugaya understood that while Ukitake had heard, he hadn't accepted it. Wouldn't accept it. Couldn't.

"Do Matsumoto-san and Hinamori-san know?" Ukitake finally asked. Toushiro smiled, his face brimming with slow regret and quiet grief.

"I'm not cruel enough to tell them." He answered softly. Ukitake looked down at him, brown gaze watery.

"How long do you have?"

Hitsugaya choked then.

"Six months."

* * *

He stopped the chemotherapy shortly after Unohana pronounced him to be a terminal patient. Kurosaki and Unohana both respected his decision, saying nothing to him save a few biting whispers of sorrow.

Toushiro sat smiling on the roof of the nearest building which overlooked the training field, his legs tucked underneath him, his bright jade glare contented and peaceful. In the month since he'd halted his chemotherapy treatment, he'd finally come to terms with his illness and imminent death. It had been difficult. But with Kurosaki and Ukitake at his side, and Matsumoto and Hinamori still behaving towards him as they always had, still blissfully ignorant of his condition, he'd managed to find that inner quiet which he'd once taken for granted.

So now he just needed to tell his division and those close to him who didn't yet know.

"Hello, Captain." Matsumoto said suddenly, settling next to him, smiling in bafflement. He turned towards her, expression calm.

"Hello, Matsumoto." he parroted dryly. "Why are you looking at me as if I've grown an extra nose?"

She smiled at his deadpan humor, her blue eyes winking brightly.

"Don't you have an appointment with Unohana now?" she asked carefully. "For the medicine?"

Toushiro blinked, confusion stealing over him briefly, and Matsumoto gently wrapped an arm about his shoulders, recognizing the look.

"The chemotherapy, taicho, remember?" she asked tenderly. At that, Hitsugaya's vision cleared, and his face went slightly melancholy.

"Actually, Matsumoto, we need to talk about that." He said, his tone gloomy. His lieutenant stiffened, her mouth falling open, and just as Ukitake had gripped his shoulders all the tighter, so did she.

"T-taicho?" she whispered. Hitsugaya sighed deeply.

"It's not working, Matsumoto." He said gently. "I spent almost a year on it, but the cancer is too aggressive. It's already spread to my brain stem and is growing down. I've stopped the treatment."

Matsumoto shook her head in disbelief, gasping in shock, understanding what Hitsugaya was telling her with perfect clarity but refusing to believe it.

"N-no." she whispered, and suddenly she'd pulled him into her arms again, cradling him against her chest with desperate grief. "You can't die on me, Captain."

Hitsugaya hugged her back, saltwater on his cheek.

"But I'm going to." he told her softly. "So I need you to help me live while I have time left here."

For a moment no words passed between them, and Matsumoto simply whimpered into her captain's shoulder, well aware of how frail he'd become. Then she raised her head, trying to smile, showing off her incredible bravery, the lion at her heart.

"I'll help you." She told him firmly, her voice wavering. "I'll be by your side until you're six feet under."

Hitsugaya leaned his head on her shoulder, feeling tired suddenly. He smiled, the crystal tear still arcing down his smooth face, and murmured a brief thank you. Then he fell asleep, the crisp puffs of winter slowly warming into spring.

* * *

Unohana taught him ikebana. Yamamoto helped him host his own tea ceremony. Matsumoto and Kyoraku even convinced him to participate in a wine-tasting event, which he actually found that he enjoyed. Otorobashi tried and failed to teach him how to play a musical instrument – though they both had a few good laughs when Kira also attempted to join in. Hinamori brought over watermelons every week or so, and then they would spin tops. Toushiro, always won, of course, so in retribution Hinamori had attempted to teach him to paint. That ended up as more of paint war in the end though – each of the two had been covered in differently colored paints by the time they were finished. Even Uryuu tried to help, attempting to teach Hitsugaya archery and making a new friend in the process (it was nice finally finding someone smart to talk to.)

Hitsugaya smiled more in those few months than he had in the hundred years previous.

However, it wasn't meant to last, and everyone knew it.

Two days before his birthday, he collapsed, dropping like a stone in dizzying fall. Ukitake, who was with him at the time, rushed him to the hospital, knowing that the boy's cancer had finally caught up with him. When Toushiro woke again, it was to the sound of buzzing machines and an awful pain in his head. His body hurt, and breathing was difficult.

Matsumoto came in to visit him two days later, hiding her tears behind a bundle of daffodils and a bright package, which she set on the bedside table. Toushiro looked up at her from where he lay cradled in the blankets, the oxygen tube in his nose only barely easing the effort he was making.

"Hey…" he said weakly, his voice strained. Matsumoto smiled down at him and kissed his forehead tenderly.

"Happy birthday, Taicho." She said sincerely. "How are you feeling?"

He grinned at her, his jade glare bleary with painkillers.

"Can I leave now?" he asked, his tone light. Rangiku chuckled slightly, the bittersweetness of her captain's behavior striking her hard.

"If I had my way, yes." She replied easily. "But Unohana wants you to stay. So we decided to have your birthday party in your room."

Toushiro frowned, his expression surly.

"Can't I at least go-"

He broke off midsentence as a cough swept through him, turning his soft breaths into a garbled mess. Matsumoto waited patiently for him to regain his composure, and when he did, his face was despondent.

"Never mind." he said softly, answering her unspoken ' _what is it?'_ "I guess I'm bedridden now."

Matsumoto reached out and caress her young captain's hollowed cheek, trying to keep the pity from her eyes. She swallowed hard, and smiled as he reached up with spiderlike fingers and took her hand in his. With a choked sob, she leaned down and kissed the young man's wan forehead.

"I don't want you to die, Taicho." she whispered. Toushiro looked up at the ceiling, sorrow polluting the brightness of his fading smile.

"I know."

* * *

The Tenth Division was extremely subdued for the next five weeks, and though Kurosaki-taicho came over every other day to help Matsumoto train the squads, the absence of their small, snow-headed captain left a very clear mark on the men. Hitsugaya had been the pride of the Tenth ever since he'd become the Third Seat straight out of the Academy. Now he was so ill that he couldn't even get out of bed.

Hinamori, Matsumoto, Kurosaki, and Ukitake went to visit him at least once a day, sometimes more if they could, and so they'd been terribly, vividly present through the boy's slow deterioration. First he'd needed help sitting up, and then help feeding himself as the tumor slowly encroached upon his spinal cord and gradually paralyzed him. Then he'd needed intravenous painkillers, and a few days after that, oxygen support.

Matsumoto had been present when Toushiro, fingers shaking, had signed his name at the bottom of his will, tears welling in her eyes. He'd left most of his wealth to his division - an unorthodox move on his part, but not one unheard of - and then given a certain percentage to Hinamori. His belongings he'd split amongst Hinamori, his lovely grandmother, Kurosaki, Ukitake, and Matsumoto. Everything else he'd left up to Ukitake, who he'd named his executor. He'd even helped to organize his own funeral from his sickbed, insisting that the ubiquitous white flowers always present at funerals be replaced with bright yellow daffodils to symbolize his divison.

But finally, the bitter, draining slog had come to an end.

"Matsumoto-fukutaicho. Kurosaki-taicho." Unohana said gently, standing placidly off to one side, watching from behind several unseated shinigami as the pair of officers trained a platoon of the seniormost officers. Matsumoto held up a hand, pausing her men's training, and then she and Ichigo turned to the healing captain, blinking away the sweat that had run into their eyes. Ichigo jumped a bit at the sight of Unohana, then let out a long breath, brown eyes wide.

"...Unohana-san." he breathed softly, understanding, and slowly reached out to clasp Matsumoto's shoulder tenderly, his hand shaking. The Fourth Division Captain bowed her head, her voice trembling.

"...He wants to see you both." she finally said, tears glittering on her long eyelashes. Matsumoto shook her head, took a step back. The soldiers of the Tenth Division began to realize what was happening in that moment, and as their lieutenant let the tears fall the division entered their mourning phase.

When the teary Rangiku and stricken Ichigo reached the Fourth Division, they found that all the captains were holding vigil alongside Hinamori and the sweet old woman who had taken care of the prodigy captain for so long. Toushiro was lying utterly still in his bed, the tubes and wires attached to him all pulsing slowly, weakly, in time with the beat of his failing heart. He was barely conscious, and so frail that he couldn't speak. Each breath was clearly a struggle, an epic battle that he forced himself to fight and win. But when Ichigo and Rangiku entered the room he smiled wordlessly, peace clouding over his brilliant jade stare.

The old woman stifled a sob in the palm of her hand and stroked her dying grandson's smooth scalp.

"Look, Toushiro-chan." she said softly. "Matsumoto-san and Kurosaki-san are here now."

Hinamori looked up from where she knelt by her brother's side, brown eyes watering, and wordlessly Ichigo went over to sit by her, refusing to cry. Matsumoto stood at the left of her captain's bed, by Ukitake. Toushiro blinked wearily at them all. On impulse, Matsumoto reached out and took her captain's pale, fragile little hand, sitting on the edge of the soft mattress he lay on, weeping openly. But she smiled at him, and gave his hand a squeeze.

"It's okay, Taicho." she said tremulously. "We're here now. You can let go."

His lips curled weakly and breathlessly and he mouthed a silent _thank you_.

And then, as if he'd merely fallen asleep, Hitsugaya Toushiro died.

* * *

Er...thoughts? I've been in a depressing mood recently...

~avtorSola


End file.
